


Swim

by Zaffie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Back In The Day On The Ark, Bits And Pieces Of Raven's Life, But Damnit Raven's Gonna Try Anyway, Gen, More Important Tags, More Of A Raven-Centric Story, No Goats, Not Actually A Relationship Story, One-Shot, Raven And Clarke Have A Really Weird Friendship, Raven Is Stubborn, Raven's Mother, You Can't Swim On The Ark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:06:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3473795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven was a little girl who wanted to swim, and screw all those people who say she can't do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swim

**Author's Note:**

> I've never really looked into the fanfic for this fandom before, so hi! I've always been quite satisfied with actual canon for this show, but I've had writer's block for a while and this came into my brain so I had to write it out and then I thought I might as well post it :)
> 
> I fluctuate between liking Raven and not liking Raven, but I do respect the adversity her character has gone through and all the resilience she has. I admire that. I also felt like she'd been crazy stubborn and strong at the beginning and now she's just sort of struggling with everything, so I liked the idea of a fic that reflected that. ANYWAY.
> 
> Slightly spoilers for episode... *checks*... 2x14. The most recent one. 
> 
> Please feel free to comment - I love comments - and I hope you enjoy :)

When she’s a child, Raven is tiny. Short and skinny, with the hollowed cheeks of undernourishment. It means that she is too small to reach a lot of things. It means that kids at school push her over and she struggles to get up again.

     It also means that when she is five, she is still short enough to stretch out in the iron tub and have her feet not touch the end. She can float, on the surface of her mum’s used bathwater, and even though it isn’t deep, it’s still floating.

     She says, “Is this what swimming feels like?”

   Her mum says, “Don’t ask stupid questions, Raven,” and props her feet up on the table, leaning back and swigging from the bottle she is holding.

   Raven puts her face under the water and opens her eyes as wide as they would go. She blows bubbles and makes little motions with her arms and pretends that she’s swimming. Exploring. Escaping.

***

She learns, when she grows up, that you can never swim on the ark.

     “I swam in the bath,” she says when she’s eight, and they’re learning about rivers at school.

     “You can’t swim in a bath,” Clarke Griffin says immediately. Her blond hair is in pigtails, with ribbons, and her mum kissed her goodbye this morning.

     “I did, though,” Raven protests. “I wasn’t touching the bottom.” Raven’s hair is dirty and tangled running down her back, covered with oil from the vents she’s been crawling through. Her mum passed out and threw up in her room this morning.

     “No, you can only swim in a large body of water,” Clarke explains. “Because you need to move when you’re swimming, and you can’t move in a bath.”

     Raven _hates_ her.

***

She thinks that maybe being in space is like being in water. She’s desperate to try it, just once. Just to know what it feels like.

     Sometimes, she thinks that maybe it’s because she’s drifted, weightless, in the water – maybe that’s why she craves space. Because it’s the sort of feeling that can’t be just _once._

She knows it’s her fault when Finn gets arrested.

***

When Abby needs her help and suddenly she has a _chance_ to get to Finn, to get to the ground, Raven’s desperate.

     She’s so desperate that she goes to Nygel, even though she’d sworn to herself dozens of times that she’d never, ever, be that desperate. Not for anything.

     As it turns out, Raven isn’t as brave as she thinks she is. She’s _not_ willing to do _anything_ and she doesn’t know if that makes her brave or not.

     She thinks that maybe Abby’s braver than her. It doesn’t matter, though, not when Abby touches her arm or her hair and hugs her goodbye. It makes Raven feel like maybe there’s one adult out there who cares about her.

     Is this what parents are supposed to be for?

***

Raven never does get to swim. Not when she first arrives on the ground, anyway. She’s hurt, and the camp’s in the middle of a survival crisis.

     “I swam,” Finn tells her, when they get a moment alone to talk.

     She turns her face away from him. “Don’t tell me what it was like,” she says. “I don’t want to hear.”

     He knows her well enough to understand why not. She’s grateful when he stays silent.

***

Raven’s always going to be skinny – skinny, not slim – and it hadn’t bothered Finn but she wonders if it will bother someone else.

     Like Bellamy.

     She should have known better, of course. He doesn’t care what she looks like. It’s just sex and it’s good whether she’s skinny or not.

     Raven thinks that maybe having sex with more than one person – more than just Finn – will make her feel like an adult. It doesn’t, not really. It just makes her feel like her mum.

***

When Abby’s doing the surgery, Raven tries to think about swimming.

     She thinks about other things, too; all the things that she’ll do on the ground when this is over. She’s going to be okay, she’s going to be fine, she’s going to climb the tallest trees and run across the grass and swim until her lungs burn.

     _Her leg is never going to work right again and none of that is ever going to happen._

***

Abby goes right back to ignoring Raven like a second-class citizen when she gets Clarke back.

     Raven doesn’t think she should be surprised. It’s not surprising, really, is it? Parents love their children and no one else. Raven is nobody’s child.

     It gives her another reason to hate Clarke – and really, she has _so many_ reasons to hate Clarke. She doesn’t know why she keeps trusting her.

***

She has sex with Wick and sure, she likes him, because he’s funny and sometimes sweet, but she doesn’t like him that much.

     It makes her think of her mum again and her eyes get hot. Raven’s mum had always said that sex was casual, not special. The best part about Finn was that he proved her mum wrong.

     Well Finn’s gone, and Raven doesn’t even know what she’s doing anymore. She stares at her leg with tears blurring her vision when she straps up the brace and she thinks that she’s an idiot. This whole thing is a disaster.

     “Look,” Wick says, “if you want to do this, I’m in.”

     She doesn’t want to do this, though. She likes him, sure, but not like that, and this is all just a mess of confusion and feelings and… stuff. Stuff Raven isn’t ready to deal with.

     She thinks, now, that maybe she understands her mum better. Life isn’t perfect. Life is shambolic.

     So she makes a decision. She’s never going to swim. And Raven is never going to have children.


End file.
